Borrowed urban planning models fail test in Africa

Sustainable urban development will require “a radically different approach” to planning law reform so as to make realistic progress, a new report on planning in Africa argues. Africa Research Institute says promotion of “one-size-fits-all” and “model” planning laws borrowed from elsewhere has not served the African continent well. Instead, planning laws have acted as barriers and created opportunities only for the elite. “Invariably it (the current approach) has created further legal uncertainty and a series of unanticipated, often pernicious consequences,” Stephen Berrisford says in the...